Sunday, August 6, 2017

Save the Last Dance For Me by Edward Gorman, 230 pages

As Black River Falls,
Iowa, prepares for a presidential election campaign visit from Vice
President Richard Milhous Nixon, Reverend John Muldaur is stirring up
the town with both his anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic circulars and his
snake-handling ceremonies. When Muldaur drops dead on his altar,
however, it's not from a snakebite but from strychnine-laced Pepsi. With
only a week before her good friend Tricky Dick comes to town, Judge
Esme Whitney enlists her friend the struggling lawyer and occasional
investigator Sam McCain to prevent the population of Black River Falls
from looking like "a bunch of hillbillies." Once again, McCain must
confront local prejudices, secrets, and dim-witted police chief Cliffe
Sykes, Jr. to solve another small-town mystery in the acclaimed series
launched with The Day the Music Died.